Skip to main content

Weekend Marathon Breakdown

By Brett Larner

Sunday was a break in the elite Japanese marathon calendar, but there were at least seven quality amateur marathons across the country, two with over 10,000 finishers ranking them among the world’s largest full marathons. Winning times were as fast as 2:20:32 for men and 2:38:51 for women, with one race featuring a rare European winner. A nationwide breakdown of the Feb. 19 marathons:

Kyoto Marathon, Kyoto
Total finishers: 15,714
Men: 1. Kosuke Murasashi 2:20:32
Women: 1.Yuria Ikuno 2:45:15

Kumamoto Castle Marathon, Kumamoto
Total finishers: 10,944
Men: 1. Haruki Okayama 2:22:45
Women: Chigusa Yoshimatsu 2:56:20

Kochi Ryoma MarathonKochi
Total finishers: 9,589
Men: 1. Daisuke Ikemoto 2:28:06
Women: 1. Chiho Matoba 2:58:51

Kitakyushu Marathon, Fukuoka
Total finishers: 9,434
Men: 1. Shuji Tsukamoto 2:22:31
Women: 1. Marie Imada 2:38:51

Okinawa MarathonOkinawa
Total finishers: 8,303
Men: 1. Thomas Frazer (Ireland) 2:27:09
Women: 1. Eri Suzuki 2:47:40

Senshu International Marathon, Osaka
Total finishers: 4,505
Men: 1. Mitsutaka Imura 2:22:53
Women: 1. Mitsuko Ino 2:44:21

Kaifugawa Furu Marathon, Tokushima
Total finishers: 1,584
Men: 1. Takumi Matsumoto 2:26:10
Women: 1. Chika Niki 2:48:25

© 2017 Brett Larner
all rights reserved

Comments

Metts said…
Looking at the list of world's largest marathons and I see over 20 from Japan in the top 50. Reminds of the list of the top 50 subway stations, almost all Japanese.
Metts said…
Excuse me, world's busiest subway stations.

Most-Read This Week

Tokyo Olympics Marathon Trials Winner Nakamura Enters Waseda Grad School

An Olympian in the marathon at the Tokyo Olympics, Shogo Nakamura (Fujitsu) announced on his social media that he has entered Waseda University 's Graduate School of Sport Science with the start of the new academic year this week. A graduate of Mie's Ueno Kogyo H.S. , Nakamura went to Komazawa University before joining Fujitsu in 2015. His senior year of high school he was 3rd overall and 2nd Japanese in the 5000 m at the National High School Track and Field Championships, and in the fall the same year he ran what was at the time the 7th-fastest high school mark ever, 13:50.38. At Komazawa he scored four individual stage wins across the three big university ekidens. In 2019 he won the MGC Race, Japan's marathon trials for the Tokyo Olympics, where he was 62nd in 2:22:23. Nakamura indicated that he would be studying "top sports management" under professor Takeo Hirata . "I'll be balancing competition and academics," Nakamura wrote. "I'm r...

Weekend Road and Track Roundup

A roundup of the main road and track action on the last weekend of Japan's 2024-25 academic and fiscal year: Doubling off a 2:07:06 PB at the Tokyo Marathon 4 weeks ago, Tatsuya Maruyama took bronze at the Asian Marathon Championships in Jiaxing, China in 2:11:56. Gold went to North Korea's Il Ryong Han in a breakaway 2:11:18, with silver medalist Tianyu Chen of China just ahead of Maruyama in 2:11:50. Japan's Shungo Yokota was a distant 4th in 2:14:00, with Japan-based Mongolian NR holder Ser-Od Bat-Ochir 6th in 2:15:14. Japanese women Kaede Kawamura and Natsumi Matsushita were 5th and 6th in 2:31:26 and 2:34:40, with medals going to China's Bing Wu , gold in 2:26:01, North Korea's Kwang-Ok Ri , silver right behind her in 2:26:07, and defending gold medalist Khishigsaikhan Galbadrakh landing in bronze this time in 2:28:56, her third sub-2:29 performance so far in 2025. Back home, four men broke 2:20 at the Fukui Sakura Marathon . Ko Kobayashi from the Shi...

Japan Names Marathon Teams for Tokyo World Championships

On Mar. 26 the JAAF named its women's and men's marathon teams for September's Tokyo World Championships. On the women's side the team has veterans Sayaka Sato and Yuka Ando off the strength of a runner-up finish for Sato in Nagoya this year and a win in Nagoya last year by Ando, and newcomer Kana Kobayashi , 23, who has risen quickly from being a fun runner at Waseda University last year to a 2nd-place finish in Osaka Women's this year. Paris Olympics 6th-placer Yuka Suzuki was named alternate after finishing 3rd behind Kobayashi in Osaka Women's. On the men's side the team is led by last year's Fukuoka International Marathon CR breaker Yuya Yoshida and this year's Osaka runner-up Ryota Kondo . The 3rd spot on the team is reserved for JMC Series winner Naoki Koyama , who hasn't cleared the 2:06:30 World Championships qualifying standard and has to wait for the May 4 qualifying deadline for confirmation that the 1184 points he has in the Roa...